YourDost to help turbulent Indian minds

One of India’s leading actor Deepika Padokune has spoken about it, the WHO statistics reveal that four in five people suffering from mental illness choose not to get treated, while about 20 per cent of the Indian population is depressed. This is a critical issue and yet there are people who still attach a stigma to mental issues and this is what makes it difficult for them to get the badly needed help.

The problem affects every strata of society, whether it be teenagers or high-paid corporates or the elderly, yet everybody is shy to get treated. To add to this dismal situation is the lack of government-run mental hospitals. Seeing this scenario and having suffered a personal loss is what led Richa Singh, IIT-Guwahati alumnus to start YourDost in 2014 along with Puneet Manuja, IIM-Bengaluru alumnus and Prakhar Verma, a computer science graduate.

“In my last year of college during the placement time, one of my friends committed suicide because she anticipated a bad placement and that is what triggered the idea of getting emotional help for people in distress. I started doing a lot of research and I found that due to rising aspirations and lack of a support system, the stress levels of people are increasing. I found there is a lot of stigma about psychological illness and that one out of 4 Indians is going through mental illness. Reaching out to these people is necessary and not wait for people to reach out to us for help. Thus, along with my friends we started YourDost. We have a team of 75 plus experts and about four in-house psychologists who select these experts through a stringent screening process. “We are not a suicide prevention platform,but only a platform wherein distressed people can share their stories and possibly find a solution.”

So, with almost one year into operations how has the company done so far “We have over 70,000 people who have used our platform so far and we have almost 350 coversations on a daily basis. In November, we raised our first round of Angel funding which was close to Rs 2.5 crore from established entrepreneurs.

Apart from providing emotional support by talking to experts, a lot of content is written on the platform on varied issues ranging from LGBT problems to relationship issues which people can relate to and gain confidence. They also have discussion forums which act as ice-breakers. So in total, the platform is trying to lower the stigma attached to psychological issues and also provide much needed help. So, the next time you see someone in distress or if you yourself need help, YourDost is the go to place for you!